ROUNDBALL MINING COMPANY"The Lakers shot 15-50 on threes in the two games in Denver.Maybe
if Fisher and Vujacic stopped popping threes and started feeding Gasol
the ball in the post L.A. would be in better shape after four games.

"Jeff Van Gundy remarked how surprised he was at J.R.’s vision and passing ability.I think it is great that J.R. is being discovered by many basketball fans.J.R.
deserve credit for playing hard enough on defense to earn the minutes
he receives on the court and George Karl deserves credit for allowing
J.R. the freedom to make mistakes.He will turn the ball over from time to time, but no Nugget can get his teammates easy shots like J.R. can.

We have talked about how the Nuggets dominated the rebounding battle,
but the next few statistics will show how completely they dominated the
paint.The Lakers were 3-3 on dunks, but only 5-14 on layups.Denver on the other hand went 10-10 on dunks and 11-24 on layups.Denver attempted twice as many layups and dunks as the Lakers did, 34-17."

NBA.COM - ART GARCIA"Lakers coach Phil Jackson took a $25,000 hit from the league (the
organization was fined the same) for criticizing officiating after Game
4. The Nuggets had a 49-35 advantage in free throws.

Normally, Karl believes it’s a good sign when the opposing coach starts
moaning about the refs. That might not be the case with the Zen Master.

'He’s good. He’s really good. His philosophical stuff is good stuff,'
Karl said. 'He knows how to trick you into thinking with him. I'm not
that good.'

'I had my opportunity in Game 3 to go to the same place. I decided not
to go there. I don’t think our team expects to get anything except a
fair whistle. We know they’re the champs. We know Kobe is considered
one of the best ever.'"

BLAZE OF LOVE"I'm seriously starting to consider the Denver Nuggets as the most
entertaining team in sports. Sure, the team might live up its
"Thuggets" nickname on a nightly basis and look like complete tattooed
freaks, but that's still entertaining is it not? The list below are
almost all events or images from game 4 which is pretty ridiculous.
What other franchise can come up with this much amazing entertaining
garbage in one night? During Game 4, you'd have thought that JR Smith was an NBA All-Star who
was in the midst of scoring 50+ after seeing gang signs, chest pounds,
dancing and an elite level of foul bitching." [Weird pic of Melo directly in front of Pau Gasol courtesy of Blaze of Love along with the cool GIF montages of JR Smith & Birdman.]

LAKERS.COM - MIKE TRUDELL"After appearing at times sluggish in the first two games of each of
their first two 2009 playoff series, the Lakers pulled things together
quite impressively in their two Game 5’s and a Game 7 against Utah and
Houston, respectively. In fact, all three games ended up being blowouts
after the Jazz and Rockets had taken 1-of-2 from L.A. at home in Games
3 or 4. Now, the question is, will the Lakers be able to continue this pattern
against a Denver team that’s proven to be playing better basketball
than either of L.A.’s previous opponents, and with Lamar Odom and
Trevor Ariza both nursing injuries? In other words, just because L.A.
played very well in its building in the first two rounds doesn’t mean
they’ll be able to repeat the effort against Denver, even if the
evidence doesn’t hurt. In this case, to repeat their STAPLES success,
the purple and gold will not only need more from Odom and Ariza -
injured or not - but from the rest of the bench, who’ll be looked at to
display the kind of energy shown by the Nuggets’ pine in Game 4."

NBA FANHOUSE - MATT STEINMETZ"Darn right I want to see the Cleveland Cavaliers vs. the L.A. Lakers in
the NBA Finals. And, yes, some of it has to do with the significant
subplot of LeBron James vs. Kobe Bryant.

For
a few reasons, that's the series I want. And I'm not going to feel
guilty about it or apologize for it or pay any attention to the
backlash. I know Orlando's Dwight Howard feels disrespected because everyone seems to be pulling for Cabs-Lakers and LeBron-Kobe, but he shouldn't take it personally.

His time will come. That's
what most of this is about, actually. The single biggest reason I'd
like to see a Cavs-Lakers NBA Finals comes down to a sense of
propriety, really, and a desire to see teams fail first before getting
a chance to play for a title.

Like that old Smith Barney ad
featuring John Houseman, a title team must 'earn it,' and the only way
to earn it is to first be humbled. Call me old-fashioned but I don't
want a surprise champ or someone coming out of nowhere."

A different loss, but the same lesson. Failing
to match the other team’s energy means failing to match the other
team’s point total.

Seems pretty simple, right? Must not be, though, given the Lakers’ penchant for repeating the mistake.

This
seems especially true when playing a mile above sea level. Whether it
was the altitude or just the attitude Monday, the Lakers didn’t play
with enough air beneath them."

LAKE SHOW LIFE - RYAN KANE"'I just fell on my face for no reason,' Kobe Bryant said. 'I’m a
klutz.' This in response to an obvious missed tripping call. Upon
replay, it became arguably certain that the Nuggets’ Dahntay Jones intentionally tripped LA’s biggest superstar.

After the game, Lakers coach Phil Jackson complained about the poor
refereeing that we’ve seen in these playoffs. It seems, from most
coverage, that we’ve experienced a higher than usual number of bad or
missed calls this post season. Further, it seems like
next-day-refereeing is becoming the standard method of making up for
mistakes.

I can think of three missed calls that were huge right off the top
of my head right now- The tripping of Kobe, Dwight Howard’s clean block
on Lebron’s 3-pointer that was called a foul, and the missed call on
the intentional foul on Carmelo Anthony that allowed him to drain a
game-winning shot.

Then you have the league assessing flagrant 1’s and 2’s the day
after as if it were making up for something by doing so. Is this the
right way to handle a missed call? Do fans feel that the mistake was
vindicated by simply assessing a meaningless label to it a day later?
Lets face it- fines are useless to these athletes. They make far too
much money for that to matter to them. Why bother setting the precedent
for referees that they can miss a call when it counts only to have the
league “make things right” the following day in the media."

FORUM BLUE & GOLD"Bynum had a good game in game four, but some of his other efforts
have been lackluster. Fisher is struggling on both ends, but at least
he is battling. Jordan Farmar and Shannon Brown have looked better in
stretches, but they have far from been the answer or been consistent.
For the playoffs, Walton’s PER is 9.65, Fisher’s is 6.74, and Sasha’s
is 3.82.

Then there is Lamar Odom. Who has just been MIA for most of this
series unless he is guarding an inbound pass. He may be still be banged
up, but we simply need more out of him. The Odom with the inside out
game, who can grab the board and run the break has disappeared.

This is all very frustrating because during the season guys did step
up. Not all at once, but guys did. Odom had dominating stretches, Sasha
was knocking down key shots (as was Fisher), and then there were some
great games early on from Farmar. The point is somebody stepped up.

Denver’s bench, on the other hand, is stepping up. LK basically won
them game two, and yesterday when Melo was sick they got great play
from K-Mart, Nene, JR, just about everybody.

There are no easy answers for the Lakers, no simple Xs and Os
adjustment that changes the series. Maybe Phil just goes back to his
set regular season rotation and stops searching. But the fact is, it is
a coach’s job to put players in a position to succeed — then the
players have to make plays. What the rotation is doesn’t matter if guys
are not stepping up."

SILVER SCREEN & ROLL"I don’t like complaining about officiating. It’s the easy way out.
It’s a way of ignoring your own team’s shortcomings. It’s a way to
make excuses. But, sometimes, it is absolutely necessary. This is one
of those times. Right now, I consider it my responsibility to do so.

The NBA is shooting itself in the foot. The officiating this
postseason has been so consistently bad that it could very well be
causing the game to lose fans. This isn’t about Game 4 of Nuggets vs.
Lakers, although that is the impetus. This is about the state of the
game, and its referees, as a whole. This is about making sure the NBA
Finals is not a free throw contest.

Coming off of what was probably the best combination of the first 4
games in Conference Finals history, every NBA fan in the world was
salivating over what the next installments of both series’ would
bring. So what were we treated to over this fine Memorial Day
Weekend? Free Throws. A whole lot of them. An average of 82 a game."